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On Wednesday, Idaho became the 11th state to report a case of the rare illness, which has been linked to tainted steroids produced by a specialty pharmacy in Massachusetts. The case in Idaho is the first discovered in the western United States.

DANVILLE, Ky., Oct 11- With the Republicans grabbing the momentum in a shifting White House race, Vice President Joe Biden will look to recover some ground and ease Democratic worries on Thursday in a high-stakes debate against Republican challenger Paul Ryan.

Oct 11- The following are the top stories in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. *BAE Systems Plc and EADS called off their merger after the UK, France and Germany failed to agree on how much influence they should have over the combined entity.

DANVILLE, Ky., Oct 11- With the Republicans grabbing the momentum in a shifting White House race, Vice President Joe Biden will look to recover some ground and ease Democratic worries on Thursday in a high-stakes debate against Republican challenger Paul Ryan.

Oct 11- Foreclosure filings on U.S. homes in September fell to their lowest level in five years, but some states are still seeing their foreclosures rise, a report from RealtyTrac said on Thursday. The overall decrease put the combined number of reported default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions at 180,427- the lowest total since July 2007.

ORLANDO, Fla., Oct 10- A Florida billionaire has told his employees he could be forced to lay off some of them if U.S. David Siegel, the owner of Orlando- based Westgate Resorts, the largest privately held time-share company in the world, said in an email to the firm's 7,000 employees this week that he did not want to influence how they voted.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Oct 10- In an embarrassing mistake, Florida Governor Rick Scott gave out a phone sex hotline number to Floridians seeking information on a deadly fungal meningitis outbreak. The governor's office was alerted by a public radio station in Tampa, WUSF, which was monitoring the cabinet meeting and posted the number on its website.

By Tim McLaughlin and Toni Clarke. BOSTON, Oct 10- A Massachusetts specialist pharmacy linked to a company at the center of a major health scare closed temporarily on Wednesday and a state regulator clamped down on such operations in the wake of a meningitis outbreak that has claimed a dozen lives.

Robert Zimmerman Jr., whose brother George Zimmerman faces up to life in prison, recently appeared on several TV and radio shows complaining about a "vast mis-information campaign," as well as highlighting an "official letter of condolence" to Trayvon Martin's family.

MIAMI-- A section of a parking garage under construction at a community college collapsed Wednesday, killing two people and trapping two others in the rubble, officials said. At least 10 other workers were hurt when the roof of the five-story concrete garage fell, creating a pancake-style collapse on the campus of Miami-Dade College, officials said.

MIAMI-- The company overseeing construction of a community college parking garage in Florida says it's working to find out why it collapsed. Ajax Building Corporation released a statement Wednesday, extending its sympathies to the family of the worker killed in the collapse and those who were injured.

WASHINGTON-- A Federal Reserve survey released Wednesday found that the economy grew modestly in the late summer, bolstered by solid gains in housing. The report is based on anecdotal information from the regional districts and covers the period from mid-August to Sept. 28. The region's economy expanded modestly.

NEW YORK-- If you are trying to figure out if small businesses are hiring, it depends on where you look. Just last Friday when the government was raising suspicious eyebrows with its report of a sudden drop in the unemployment rate so close to a presidential election, Andy Asbury was hiring a full-time employee to work at his Minneapolis real estate brokerage.

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Oct 10- Pressure mounted for greater regulation of a little known corner of the pharmaceuticals industry in response to a meningitis scare that widened to 11 states on Wednesday with the first case confirmed in Idaho.

*Cotton market awaits USDA supply/demand report Thursday. The cotton market was awaiting the U.S. Department of Agriculture's monthly report due on Thursday for any signs of damage to new crops in west Texas, the major U.S. growing region, after recent wet weather.

Eight times a year, the Federal Reserve issues the Beige Book, a snapshot of business conditions in each of the Fed's 12 regional bank districts. The Beige Book is updated two weeks before each meeting of the Fed's policymaking meeting in Washington. GDP is the value of all goods and services produced in the United States.